GYOPO Diasporic Refractions: Installations

GYOPO Diasporic Refractions: Installations

June 3–10, 2025
Walt Disney Concert Hall
151 S. Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Diasporic identity is one that is inherently multiple; at its core is a recognition of difference. GYOPO resists essentialized notions of Korean identity and culture by refracting them through the lens of diaspora and intersectionality. On the occasion of Seoul Festival, GYOPO and LA Phil Insight present a week of video installations at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, a symposium, and an afternoon of performance.

Grounding GYOPO Diasporic Refractions are two works by Seoul-based artists: A Performing by Flash, Afterimage, Velocity, and Noise (2019), an audio-visual installation by siren eun young jung in BP Hall and 커터3 CutterIII (2023), a video installation by Heecheon Kim in the Grand Avenue Lobby. The weekend of programming begins with a symposium co-curated by musician and artist Sasami Ashworth on resistance and creative practice, featuring artist yuniya edi kwon, designer Mindy Seu, singer-songwriter NoSo, and performances by yuniya edi kwon and NoSo.

GYOPO Diasporic Refractions closes with an interactive pre-concert performance showcase, co-curated by artist and GYOPO volunteer Hannah Joo, which includes Ari Osterweis, Sharon Chohi Kim, Hwa Records, and Young Sun Han—all diasporic Korean artists who ignite resistance from the spaces between memory and manifestation, and navigate the nuanced terrains of cultural memory, generational healing, and community building. Audiences are invited to absorb a blend of vocalization, movement, ritual, and procession, culminating in an embodied coalescence of themes in the Walt Disney Concert Hall Blue Ribbon Garden.

Video Installations

A Performing by Flash, Afterimage, Velocity, and Noise (2019) by siren eun young jung

Debuted at the Korean Pavilion of the 2019 Venice Biennale, siren eun young jung’s A Performing by Flash, Afterimages, Velocity, and Noises (2019) probes questions around gender, tradition, and emancipatory possibilities. The audio-visual installation is based on ten years of research on yeoseong gukgeuk, a genre of Korean theatre in which all roles, uniquely and subversively, are performed by women actors. A Performing by Flash, Afterimages, Velocity, and Noises manifests a queer aesthetics and politics through provocative gestures that break free from conventional genre performances and evocative interventions of light, speed, movement, and sound that sometimes clash and, at other times, reconcile beautifully.

HOW TO VIEW: A Performing by Flash, Afterimage, Velocity, and Noise will be on view in BP Hall inside Walt Disney Concert Hall. The installation is open to Seoul Festival concert ticket holders.

The installation can also be viewed during the following Walt Disney Concert Hall Self-Guided Tour hours: June 4-6 and June 10 from 10AM-3PM. The last tour of the day is at 2PM. Public tours begin in the Grand Avenue Lobby.

커터3 CutterIII (2023) by Kim Heecheon

Heecheon Kim’s 커터3 CutterIII (2023), installed in the Grand Avenue Lobby, takes inspiration from the absence of time in video games and the disorienting white cube architecture of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Seoul, Korea. The work was created using a “game engine” which is a software platform for developing video games, and represents real-world locations within randomly shuffled speculative scenarios, structurally revealing the spatiotemporal conditions imposed upon us. 커터3 CutterIII was commissioned and produced by MMCA, and its spiritual predecessor 더블포져 Double Poser (2023) has been exhibited and at the Hayward Gallery, UK among other venues.

HOW TO VIEW: 커터3 CutterIII will be on display in the Grand Avenue Lobby of Walt Disney Concert Hall two hours prior to and during all Seoul Festival concerts. The lobby is open to the public.

HOW TO GET TO WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL

Walt Disney Concert Hall is located at 111 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles CA 90012.

Parking is available directly beneath Walt Disney Concert Hall. Enter on Second Street or Lower Grand Avenue. Please visit the LA Phil Website for costs and hours of operations.

Walt Disney Concert Hall is also accessible by subway: Grand Avenue Arts/Bunker Hall station (Blue, Expo, and Silver Lines) or the Civic Center/Grand Park Metro station (Red and Purple Lines)

LA Phil Insight is generously supported by Linda and David Shaheen.